Hope dims for American hostage as US hastily exits Afghanistan

As American military forces withdraw from Afghanistan, the family of hostage Mark Frerichs fears time is running out to secure his release from the Taliban.

The Illinois family of a U.S. Navy veteran who has been held hostage by the Taliban has said for the past year that he might get left behind by his own country. With the accelerated and chaotic exit from Afghanistan by America's remaining military forces, their worst fears may be realized. Once American military and special operations personnel have left Afghanistan -- which some officials anticipate will happen by July Fourth -- experts say the U.S. will lose most of whatever leverage it might have to free civil engineer Mark Frerichs through one of the limited number of tracks the government has already contemplated or acted upon during his 17 months of captivity. Frerichs, 58, from Lombard, Illinois, was kidnapped in January 2020 in the capital city of Kabul after being lured to a business meeting that was a ruse, officials have told ABC News. Officials believe he is being held by the Taliban's Haqqani network, which has kidnapped other American and British citizens for ransom or prisoner swaps over the course of the two-decade war. Critics say the Trump administration was slow to raise Frerichs' captivity last year with Taliban negotiators in Doha, Qatar, during negotiations to end the long war which followed the 9/11 attacks. U.S. Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, a veteran Afghan-American diplomat, did not publicly mention Frerichs until months after he had forged a pact to withdraw U.S. military forces, which was signed just a few weeks after the U.S. citizen's abduction.